John Schettler - Ironfall

“Alright,” said Fedorov. “So what is your point?”

“The two months of September were not on the same time meridian.” He folded his arms, smiling. “You see? Your first mission to try and retrieve Orlov was in September of 42, but this time around your scheme was to get rid of Sergei Kirov—also in September of 1942. It was two different time lines! There’s no other way to explain it.”

“I suppose that must be true,” said Fedorov.

“Yes, but you thought everything would go to hell after September 30, 1942. Remember? You said this world would have no basis to exist after that, the day Orlov wrote that letter that you discovered. That set everything in motion, your mission to fetch him, your visit to Ilanskiy, your chat with Kirov, Volkov, the Orenburg Federation, and then all that I did. That is what built the world and war we’ve been fighting. Well, here we are, smack dab in the middle of 1943, and all still friends.” Karpov gave him a devious smile, then came to his point. “Nothing fell apart, Fedorov. The world did not end, nor did it start disintegrating, and it hasn’t spun off into an interminable loop like you suggested. It’s just blundering its way forward through all these Altered States. It’s a new time line, a new meridian—and guess what. Time has to settle her bets one day or another. We put an end to the old time line when we built this one. So this is all she’s got to work with now. See?”

“You mean to say—”

“Yes, I do. This is it, Fedorov. This is the new Prime Meridian! All that other stuff is dead and gone. Everything in the first loop we made here is nothing more than a fond memory in our heads. I challenge you to find anyone among the rank and file who remembers one lick of it, and there were some very memorable moments.”

“Like when you fired off that nuke in the North Atlantic?” Volsky gave him a recriminating look.

“Exactly!” said Karpov, unphased. “That caused Japan to enter the war early, remember, but not here. We have the old tried and true on this meridian, Pearl Harbor. So the old meridian is gone. This time line is all that matters now.”

“But it can’t be the new prime,” said Fedorov. “It’s a complete dead end. It continues to diverge from the old history, which makes the creation of this ship more and more impossible with each passing day. And yet, this ship must be built for this time line to even exist. It’s maddening!”

“Yes, it is,” said Karpov, “but the mistake you make was believing the world we came from was the prime meridian in the first place….”

He let that hang out there, waiting a moment. “That may have just been our selfish arrogance, but it was probably just ignorance instead. We had no idea that time travel was even possible until the Orel blew up while we were on fleet exercises. We just assumed there was only one meridian of time, but now we know that is not the case. There are many, but this is the way things are now. The altered states we created have become the new prime. Whether that gives rise to the building of this ship or not is irrelevant. Yes, we were first cause for the foundation and building of this new meridian, but where is the big bang, eh? They say that’s what built the whole universe, and it’s over—done and finished. This is the result, and the result is all there is.” He gestured with his hand to the ship and world around them.

“But how could a ship from 2021 be a part of this world?” Fedorov persisted. “We’re here because those other meridians did exist once. At one time, they were all that mattered.”

“Yes,” said Karpov, “but their time has come and gone. So let’s just take my proposition as a starting point. This is the new Prime Meridian, and here we all are trying to reach some unified intention of going back to 1908 and reshuffling the cards. Why? Because we still cling to some notion that this history is wrong. We’re still trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, and make this world look like the one we came from. We’re trying to raise the dead….”

“I need a good stiff drink,” said Gromyko.

“Agreed,” said Volsky, actually getting up and going over to a cabinet on the far wall where he shifted about some books and suddenly produced a hidden bottle of vodka!

“Well,” he said with a smile. “This new Prime Meridian was kind enough to keep my vodka safe and sound, just where I always stashed it. Gromyko, find some glasses.”

“So what do we do here,” said Karpov when they had all finished a few rounds of vodka. “Do we still combine our willpower as we planned. What was the principle Fedorov?”

“Absolute Certainty.”

“Yes. Who knows what that means, but you say if we put our heads together, we’ll get right where we decide to go—back to 1908. Do we persist with this? Do we still try to go and change this new Prime back into something that looks like the old one? Then what? Do we shift back and find everything in this world is suddenly back to normal?” He made opening and closing quotes in the air with his fingers to emphasize the word “normal.”

“Just what is it you two want to accomplish?”

“Well,” said Karpov, “for starters, we thought we’d do what Fedorov failed to do last time and get rid of this Mironov. That puts the Man of Steel back at the helm, and our assumption is that he will deal with Volkov.”

“Can you be sure?” asked Volsky. “Volkov is a very cunning man, and quite determined.”

“Yes, he was quite a pain in the backside when we first met him,” said Karpov. “That’s one thing that hasn’t changed either.”

“Alright,” said Volsky. “Suppose Stalin prevails. That unites the Soviet Union, and since you will not do anything to bother Admiral Togo, the situation here in the Pacific should be back to something we all would recognize from our old Meridian. But isn’t this all speculation? Frankly, I don’t see how we could possibly know what would result from the actions we now contemplate.”

“Correct,” said Karpov. “In fact, we don’t even know if we can get out of there again, and move forward in time. Will power and absolute certainty may get us there, but Time might have no other use for us after that. Hell, she might just get rid of us if we try to shift again. That would be a nice solution.”

“Shift again?” said Fedorov. “We haven’t even discussed how we intend to go back to 1908. Are we going to use this ship? Are we going to use that back stairway at Ilanskiy?”

“Or a good Zeppelin,” said Karpov, smiling. “Yes, there are lots of ways to go. Frankly, I’d prefer to take the ship along. We’d have a good deal more clout that way, if we ever needed it.”

“True, but using that clout is another matter,” said Volsky. “That is what got the world into all this trouble in the first place. Our missiles have a way of …. Unsettling things in the past. They don’t belong there, and taking the ship along could be risky. We’d be taking the whole crew back with us. And what about Gromyko’s boat? If Kirov shifts, doe she come along as well with Kazan ?”

“Good point,” said Gromyko.

“Yes, and in my mind, the more mass we try to move, the more complex and dangerous the operation becomes. You saw what happened last time we tried to move both vessels at the same time.”

“That’s because Rod-25 could not handle all that mass on its own,” said Fedorov. “It moved us, but we could not get all the way home.”

That brought back uncomfortable memories, so they moved on. “Besides,” said Fedorov, “ Kazan has its own control rod now.”

“But how can we be certain they will work in harmony with one another. Ideally, we would all want to arrive in the past at the same time, but, as we have seen, when two vessels move, they can reach very different times.”